You must be the only Blues fan not happy with this past weekend.

Blues could get Connor McDavid for Bouwmeester and fans would b**** and moan we didn't get a first round pick. I agree, I don't think Bozak and Perron are necessary. I'm not sure why we got those pieces, but the O'Reilly trade makes up for it. At least Bozak can move into a 2c role if need be, but I don't like the signing much.

Seriously, be positive @PuckShmuck87. Let me explain the way I see it:

"Signing T. Bozak probably makes him the highest paid 3rd/4th line C in history and he's 32."
We went from 4 more years of Berglund to 3 more years of Bozak. Over their careers, Berglund scores at an 82-game pace of 38 pts and Bozak scores at 50-pt pace. Plus, Bozak has played just 9 NHL seasons, he's 32 but he should have some mileage left in him, at least enough for 3 good years.

"DP at 4x4 when you have a stable of RW prospects"
We sign a guy for free that we know can get us 40-60 pts and we don't have to rush our prospects now. I assume you're talking about Kyrou and Kostin, neither of whom would be damaged by a year in the AHL. Don't complain about future roster constructions... look how much the team just changed in the past week!

"The Blues still have two aging LHD and Fabbri (not to mention #91 and #17) coming off of injuries"
Edmundson and Dunn are our top 4 LHD... as long as we get 18-20 min from Gunnarsson or Bouwmeester on the third pair, what's not to like? We had like 4 untradeable players and Army moved 2... so don't complain about the other 2, be happy that we moved 2.

"there is very little cash to work with"
We made free agent signings and you're gonna whine about having little cash? How about you whine if we had the cash but didn't use it!

"you can slide Maroon up"
Army still may get Maroon, but he's the kind of guy that would want a long-term deal, and then you'd be whining in a couple years about how bad he is.

I always have trouble with the silly definition of 3rd/4th definition of centre. Forty three points for a guy who didn't play much on the PP seems OK with me, though I really don't like the term that much. Why didn't the Blues sign the even older home boy Stastny? The price of UFA centres in a thin market was high.
Hate to wish misfortune on anybody, but the Blues would be better off with Bouwmeister was LTIR so they could spend that money better.

For real I’m a damn Avs fan and you come out here and whine about your team? Are you kidding me? Army got this contract extension from the owner because he probably told him his plan to get Perron, ROR, and Bozak. You have some of the best center depth in the Central now in ROR-Schenn-Bozak. Why are you crying over it?

Perron and Bozak >>> Berglund and Sobotka all day every day.

Neither Sobotka or Berglund are a true center. Bozak is a good 3C and a much needed right hand shot. He's also a good face off guy. Perron won't be a Blue for the remainder of his contract. He'll most likely be exposed again when Seattle joins the league and could very well be taken again in the lottery draft. If he survives they he won't make it through 4 years at the TDL.

ROR is certainly not a Tavares but all he's every played on are crap teams. Schenn never had a full time chance at center and he excelled here. Some Buffalo fans want to point out ROR's production at even strength. Let's see what ROR does with Tarasenko on the wing. I'm fully confident ROR will excel with the Blues and is exactly what the Blues needed to compete with the Central and the rest of the league.

Thanks for the response. Throw D. Bokk into the prospect mix at RW. Sorry, I'd rather have Brodziak @ 2 x $1.15MM than Bozak's contract for a 3rd or 4th line center. I think Armstrong was panicking when he thought that the ROR deal wasn't going thru so he threw a bunch of money at a veteran C.

I've seen enough of J. Allen as a starter. Would have kept Hutton for less money and traded Allen to NYI or CAR for a draft pic, saved a bundle and won more games. Perron at 4x4; not wild about it, but we'll see. Nope, would have been fine sitting on the cash until next year. The ROR deal has a lot of uncertainty. He might be the real deal, but COL and BUF both dumped him. That smells to me. He has the same term remaining and cap hit as Tarasenko.

Next year's group of UFA will be much deeper than this year's. Toronto will need to move a stud, young forward. The Blues will not be able to take advantage of this.

Try not to be so condescending. WTF - whining? You may not like my opinion, but it is not unsound. I've seen this too many times before. I've been going to Blues' playoff games since the '60s, the last time we made it to the finals. This team is still isn't good enough to get past NASH, WIN, or MIN. And if they could, I'm no longer satisfied with just making the playoffs. I want a Cup. So, instead of building for the future, management mortgaged it in hopes of not missing the playoffs again. Tired of treading water. If that works for you, fine. It does not work for me.

I agree about Jake, I don't want him to be the starter, but Army has to manage assets. If no one wanted Allen for a fair price, it means we have to keep him, and that means that Hutton had to move on. It would've been a mistake to offload him somewhere for pennies when he could end up putting up a good year and bring his trade value back up. I'm sure the Blues would've loved to keep Hutts but it's not like he's a proven starter that we should be happy to give the reigns over to - he's a career backup. The option Army went with gives Husso the best chance at success, and I like that.

I also think re-signing Brodziak would have been a great bottom six C option, but he chose to go closer to home with Edmonton, nothing Army can really do there. He definitely got panicky and threw money at Bozak, but IMO he totally redeemed himself by getting out from under the contracts of Sobotka and Berglund in that BUF trade. Although just like with Lehtera, he doesn't deserve to be called an angel for it, they were his signings in the first place. I don't love everything Army does, but he at least deserves a bit of credit as a pragmatist. He made the team a lot better without giving up on the future. We lost a pick in the late teens or 20s (11th as the worst case) and our 4th best forward prospect and we got a top 30 center in the league.

Sorry if it came off as condescending - I just got a little upset thinking about how you couldn't be satisfied by this offseason. Think if Army went status quo; no trades, no signings... that's what I try to compare his moves to, instead of some crazy expecation that we're going to become an amazing team overnight.

I appreciate your points, but I really think the Blues are a few years away from being competitive. Going into yesterday, you only had 3 forwards that were legit top-6. Now you have ROR and DP. I dearly hope that Fabbri can stay healthy and round out your top-6. Signing Maroon gives you a safe alternative that can play LW on any line and the Blues could use some toughness (Thornburn seems to be a great guy, just not fast enough to play against a lot of teams).

In a perfect world, R. Thomas becomes the high-end 1st line center that the Blues have lacked for years (since P. Turgeon?) in a couple of years and Foley and Bokk, Kostin, Kyrou follow suit. This is going to take time, but your young core - Parayko, Tarasenko, Edmundson, Dunn - aren't going anywhere and hopefully, Schenn and Schwartz (both 26) can be retained until some of these youngsters develop. Pietrangelo is 28 and will probably be playing great hockey for several years, but his next contract will probably be $9-10MM/yr. Do they keep him or trade him to a contender for a ransom (he has a NTC, but he might accept a trade to a contender, especially if it's his hometown, TOR). The Blues are desperate for a legit goalie, and next year's UFA class has a bunch of them. Not sure that we'll be able to participate. Defense will need attention also.

Confession - I'm not an Army fan. I know, shocker. I'm still disappointed that we traded Polak for Gunnarsson, we kept Allen instead of Ben Bishop, we signed P. Stastny to tall dollars and Hitchcock buried him on the 3rd line, and I'm pissed that we got nothing for Oshie, one of my favorite players (glad he won the Cup). Couple that with a couple of generations of being a Blues fan and, yeah, I might be a little jaded. Hitchcock's system was boring and frustrating to watch as skilled players struggled to follow all the rules. We finally had the #1 overall pick and we selected E. Johnson and left Staal, Toews, and Backstrom on the table (nobody's fault, Johnson was the consensus #1, or so we were told). A 3rd line hack from TOR named Kypreos runs Fuhr and ends our best shot at the Cup (Gretzky said that it was the best team he ever played on), and then there were those delightful Mike Keenan years. I could go on . . .

So, forgive my ranting. I should probably seek therapy! Thanks!

Dude...look around the Central. Who got better? The Preds did not get better. They don’t need to because they’re a good enough team. The Jets lost Stastny. The Wild are a shitshow in the making. They’re god awful. Dallas made a lot of minor moves, so did Chicago, and so did the Avalanche. The Blues made the only real big leap on July 1st. I don’t know what about Minnesota scares you, but if the 48 point Avalanche can come out the next year and beat them 7-2, 7-1, and 5-1, the Blues with O’Reilly can easily kill the Wild. Easily. You should be glad. Your team is fun now. Army added 3 centers in 2 years, and all of them are way better than what you had. Bozak is a 45-50 point player. The fact he’s your 3C is crazy. He’s also only plays 9 years too, he didn’t join Toronto until he was 23-24 right out of the NCAA. You just gotta be a lot less pessimistic. I’m a damn Avs fan, for crying out loud, and I’m trying to convince that your own team is good. As for the O’Reilly stuff, he got traded out of Colorado because he wanted money, and Buffalo was the team to give it to him. Dougie hopped on when ROR is probably at his lowest price. That trade was an absolute STEAL for Doug Armstrong. My god, you got the best player in the trade and you somehow saved money. That’s insane. Just wait until your team hits the ice in September, October, and November. They might not play the well together at first, the first 20 games of the season are guys shaking the rust off anyway, and then you’ll probably see the team start to click.